Fire and Fog

Lan spun and got behind Kiska, the blade resting lightly across her throat.

" She dies unless you leave."

" An idle threat," Tefize said angrily. " You had the chance to kill her and didn' t, for whatever reason. I believe it is because you are weak. And what makes you think she matters at all to me? She is Claybore' s pawn, not mine. She matters even less to me."

" Kill us both, Tefize," cried Kiska. " Just be sure he is dead."

" Shut up," Lan said, pulling the sword edge back harder across the woman' s throat. To the sorcerer he said, " You are more talk than before. Can it be you' re afraid to cast a spell for fear of injuring her? What would Claybore do to you if you harmed her? She' s important to him. She' s his sole remaining commander."

" She means nothing to Claybore," Tefize said flatly.

Lan had to admit the gnome was right. He began backing away, taking Kiska with him. Her thin body provided scant protection from a magical attack and barely more from a physical one.

" Do not think to evade me so easily," said Lirory Tefize. He lifted his hands and began a low incantation. Lan felt the magics rising about him like the ocean in a tidal basin. And with the magic came a twisting feeling within unlike anything he had ever experienced. It grew from the magic and yet was apart from it. He didn' t understand what it was that affected him so.

But with the churning in his gut came a trickle of his own magical power. He hurled forth a protective spell that snuffed out Tefize' s assault totally. And using this as cover, Lan pulled the woman with him down a side corridor. His powers were still too feeble for a real attack and he had no desire to only fend off whatever spells Tefize cast in his direction.

" Die, worm," muttered Kiska k' Adesina. " Let the short one kill you. He will be more merciful than I when I get the chance."

Lan frowned at her words. They were familiar enough, but the tone changed subtly. Gone was the stark hatred and replacing it was- what? He didn' t know. The sharp edge of her insane need for revenge had been blunted somehow.

" This way," he said, dragging her down another corridor and another and another. Behind he felt magical heat. Lirory Tefize' s spells dogged their footsteps and still he lacked the strength to properly fend off the other mage. Lan knew better than to risk a physical attack. Such turned against the sword- wielder with the suddenness of a summer storm. Better to play for time until he regained his own powers.

The weight of Lirory' s magics built up on him, though, until he barely managed to stagger. Deadly bolts of lightning ravaged the walls of Yerrary. Heat turned rock to slag. Pits opened almost beneath his feet, causing Lan to choose other paths through the mountain. And all the while he felt the changings within himself. Every time he formulated a spell of his own, the tickling sensation grew and confounded him even more.

It did not sap his strength. It grew as his magical strength grew, but did not hinder him in any way. Lan cast it from his mind. Never before had he been so drained after a battle. This must be a compensation he had not been sensitive enough to feel before.

" He' s getting closer," said Kiska.

" Afraid?"

She turned brown eyes to him that caused the feeling within his breast to stir even more.

" I won' t let Tefize hurt you," he said, his voice almost choking him.

" Martak!" came the mage' s taunting challenge. " Stand and fight! I will reduce you to a smoking cinder."

Heat blossomed in every doorway, trapping Lan and Kiska in the center of a chamber. Molten rock dripped down and blocked any possible escape, even if they had been able to enter one of the tunnels.

" What are we going to do?" asked Kiska. " He' s trapped us."

Lan smiled. His light mote bobbed in the far distance, a distance of the mind rather than of space. He teased it along until his familiar came ever closer.

" There' s a way out. Up there." He pointed to the rock ceiling.

" But it' s solid," protested Kiska. " How can we:"

The light mote surged upward and drilled effortlessly through stone and burst out of Yerrary. Cold air gushed down and bathed their sweat- soaked bodies. A second gust of wind robbed Tefize' s heat spell of even more power.

" Up. We go up."

" But that' s outside the mountain," said Kiska. " We can' t live out there. It' s too dangerous!"

Lan didn' t point out to her that staying within Yerrary was even more dangerous. He had recovered from his gargantuan battles with Tefize and Claybore, but not enough, not soon enough. There had to be a rest period to nurse himself back to full strength and ability.

Arm circling Kiska' s trim waist, Lan rushed straight upward on a solid plug of rock rising from the floor. His mote spun in a network of light as it drilled free the rock plug and lifted. They burst onto the slopes of the mountain and staggered forward onto loose stone, stumbling and falling down into a ravine.

" Tefize will follow," said Lan. " We must be ready for him."

" No, he won' t follow," said Kiska. " The gnomes hide within their mountain and seldom venture out. For them those tunnels are the entire world."

" Tefize is a sorcerer."

" It matters naught. He will not follow." Lan sent his mote scouting and discovered the woman was correct. Lirory Tefize stood under the hole carved in the roof of his protective mountain and simply stared up at the nighttime sky. Lan recalled his light mote when Tefize stalked off through the corridors of Yerrary on his way to rejoin Claybore.

" We' re safe," Lan said, leaning back against cold rock. " It' s hard to believe he wouldn' t carry the fight outside."

" Is it?" asked Kiska. " This is an inhospitable world. Look at the storms."

In the far distance electrical discharges raged that made even his and Claybore' s pale in comparison. He sighed. The battles had been desperate and he was tired to the core of his being. Only a single acid droplet spattering on his forehead prevented him from slipping off to sleep. The burning brought Lan fully awake and aware.

He glanced over at Kiska k' Adesina huddling in the lee of a rock, protecting herself from the beginning rains. She was his enemy- but he felt protective toward her. Lan shook his head. There was no accounting for what tiredness did to him.

He lifted the light mote and spread it like an umbrella over both of them. Kiska moved closer, as if he might use the rapier on her at any instant.

" There, there," he said. " Everything is going to be all right. Just relax. We' ll find a way back into the mountain and- watch out!"

Lan Martak spun about, sword flashing through the mist. He slashed frantically at the fire- breathing lizard that slithered down the ravine at them- he slashed and missed.

" Damn the fog," he muttered. " The creature uses it to hide."

" What creature?" asked Kiska, her hands stroking his arm.

" That one!"

Lan pushed the woman behind him and went to do battle with the huge lizard beast menacing them. Finding it in the fog became more and more difficult and he soon forgot about Kiska or reentering Yerrary or anything else at all.

Lirory Tefize gazed up into the blackly billowing storm clouds crowning his mountain kingdom. The acids poured forth and flooded through the hole carved by Martak; off to one side the gnome saw the thick gatherings of fog sweeping down the ravine where Lan Martak had taken refuge.

" Good enough," the mage said to himself. " They will trouble me no more. What Claybore failed to do, I have done. Driving Martak outside is sufficient to destroy him in his present condition."

Tefize again checked and saw that magic usage from outside was minimal- not enough to save Martak from the insidious mind- altering effects of the fog. The gnome closed his eyes and built the proper spell. Heat blossomed forth and washed over him. Rock melted and flowed, closing the opening. In minutes no trace of the hole remained. The phosphorescent moss visibly crept back to cover the spot, seeking a source of heat for growth.